WHO: Taylor Armstrong, star of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills."
WHAT: Signing her book "Hiding From Reality: My Story of Love, Loss and Finding the Courage Within."
WHEN: 7 p.m. Tuesday.
WHERE: Bookends, 211 E. Ridgewood Ave., Ridgewood; 201-445-0726 or book-ends.com.
HOW MUCH: Free with purchase of book ($25).
In August, when news hit that the husband of a "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star had committed suicide, the accusations started to fly.
Critics blasted Bravo, saying its reality-TV show had driven Russell Armstrong — a 47-year-old investor with financial and marital problems — to hang himself. His body was discovered in a rented bedroom, with no note, on Aug. 15, less than a month before the premiere of the second season — which he feared would portray him badly, his mother said.
Others blamed his wife, claiming that her filing for divorce on July 15 pushed him over the edge.
As usual, the story appears to be far more complex.
In "Hiding From Reality: My Story of Love, Loss and Finding the Courage Within," Taylor Armstrong describes her six-year marriage to Russell as rocky long before "Housewives" entered their lives. Russell's verbal abuse began when they were dating, she writes, and escalated into physical violence while she was pregnant with their daughter, Kennedy.
Taylor thought "Housewives" would offer some protection. "Subconsciously I knew that having that spotlight in my life could provide a layer of safety," she says on the phone, the week before her book signing in Ridgewood.
She also thought it might help Russell recognize how much help the couple needed. And in fact, after watching Season One, he finally agreed to join her in therapy, she says, adding: "But it just was too little, too late, and unfortunately, I think there … [was] some mental instability that he was struggling with, and I just wasn't able to recognize it soon enough."
The book covers her whole life, from her Oklahoma childhood on. Her earliest memory is of seeing her dad punching her mother in the face. Although they divorced by the time she was 3, that violent incident — and her single mom's financial struggles — "laid the foundation for who I am and everything that came later in my life," she writes.
The last straw
Though she worries about nearly 6-year-old Kennedy in this regard, Taylor says Russell, who also had two sons from previous relationships, "was wonderful to her and was always very careful about not showing his anger in front of the children."
Until the night that he wasn't — and started to scream at his wife in front of their daughter.
The last straw came when Russell punched her in her right eye, fracturing 40 percent of her orbital floor, the bone that supports the eye. After that, she says, "both of us knew this just is not safe."
By the time she filed for divorce, though, Taylor and Russell, in treatment together for some time, were in "a good place," she says. "We had made a vow to each other to co-parent and to do it in the most healthy way possible."
And so, his suicide was a shock.
"I loved him more than I've ever loved a partner in my life. And I still to this day miss him terribly," Taylor says.
"This book was never meant to be about Russell, [but] about two broken people that found each other and found that they fit together so well because they both were broken. …
"Domestic violence is something that people don't like to talk about. It's embarrassing. There's a stigma, a shame attached to it. I really want to reach out to women to let them know that this is what I went through [in the hope] it helps to get them to safety prior to things escalating."
